In the original Pokemon Gold and Silver, there was a secret battle pitting you against Red, the titular character from the first generation of Pokemon games and who Ash Ketchum from the anime series would be based on. Back then his team of six Pokemon had levels ranging from 73 to 81. Well, he’s back in Heart Gold and Soul Silver and this time his Pokemon are even more powerful than before! He’s even replaced his original Espeon with a Lapras. Today, we’re going to look at each of these six Pokemon and give you an idea of what you’ll need to take Red down and become the true master of all things Pokemon.

Pikachu is a straight up attacker. The first three attacks listed in his moveset are Physical attacks while Thunderbolt is a Special attack. You would think Thunderbolt would be the move you have the least to worry about since Pikachu’s Attack is a lot higher than its Special, but this Pikachu has a Light Ball, which means its Special Attack is doubled, putting this Pikachu into the Mewtwo level of power. Be wary.

Your best bet with Pikachu, who will always be Red’s lead-off Pokemon is to have a Ground type Pokemon which will prevent Volt Tackle or Thunderbolt, Pikachu’s two most dangerous moves, from hurting you. Make SURE it is not a Rock/Ground Pokemon, or Pikachu will take you down with Iron Tail. You might also want a speedy Ground type as Pikachu is lightning fast. Garchomp, Sandslash and Dugtrio are excellent examples of Pikachu stoppers in this regard, Remember though Pikachu has the Pokemon Ability of Static, which forces you to play defensive. Any physical contact with Pikachu has a 30% chance of giving YOUR Pokemon the Paralyze status. As nearly all Ground based moves are Physical attacks, a good strategy would be to find another way to attack Pikachu. For example, a Camerupt, which is a Ground/Fire Dual Type can learn Solarbeam, which is a Grass attack that uses the Special statistic. Here you have a Pokemon that is immune to 50% of Pikachu’s move, has an attack that is super-effective against Pikachu and doesn’t have to risk being Paralyzed. Flygon with Giga Drain can do the same thing.

This is a pretty straight and easy battle. A good Fire or Psychic Pokemon should be able to take down Venusaur without any real challenge. The real trick is to get out of this battle without the Poison or Sleep status. As easy as Venusaur is to take down, you need to do it quickly or you will end up with a status effect. Poison is actually better since you can still attack while suffering from it. If your Pokemon falls asleep, any of Venusaur’s attacks can do some major damage. The worst is if you have Venusaur down to the final third of its Hit Points as this will trigger Overgrowth. Trust me when I saw Overgrowth plus Frenzy Plant equals a pretty strong chance of knockout. As always speed is key, so a fast hitting Psychic Pokemon like an Espeon or Alakazam can take out Venusaur in one to two moves.

Charizard is the toughest of Red’s three Kanto starters. It has two Fire moves. Flare Blitz uses the Physical stat and Charizard will take recoil damage from it, so this move actually helps you a bit. Blast Burn uses Charizard’s Special and it’s a Fire-based Hyper Beam, so it will do a lot of damage to your Pokemon. Thankfully Charizard will have to recharge after using it. Now it’s the other two moves that should give you pause. Air Slash has a 30% chance of causing a flinch, so it’s imperative you have a Pokemon that is FASTER than Charizard. Once again, speed is the most important factor in beating Red. Nothing’s worse than having the right Pokemon with the right moves to take out Charizard only to watch it flinch three times in a row and eventual get KO’d because the faster Charizard keeps using Air Slash. Finally there’s Dragon Pulse which is thankfully just a high damage dealing Dragon type attack.

My advice is to get a fast Water, Rock or Electric type Pokemon. Rock moves do 4X damage against Charizard, but speed is hard to find in Rock Pokemon. Tyranitar and Relicanth are amongst the fastest and a Relicanth with Swift Swim is a Charizard’s worst nightmare are its Rock AND Water who actually can be faster than the big Fire Starter. Another great choice is Aerodactyl with Rock Slide or Ancientpower.

Blastoise looks like a tough opponent from its moveset. After all, it knows Water, Steel, Ice and Fighting attacks. Focus Blast and Hydro Cannon are based on lowering your Pokemon’s Special Defense and all four of Blastoise’s moves use the Special stat. The key however is a FAST (there’s that concept again.) Electric Pokemon. Something as simple as a Raichu with Thunderbolt should be able to send Blastoise down for the count in a single round. Although Water Types are also weak to Grass attacks, make sure you don’t actually pit a Grass Pokemon against Blastoise or it WILL use Blizzard against you and the results won’t be pretty. Just be fast and direct with your Electrical attacks and you’ll be fine.

Snorlax just might be Red’s toughest Pokemon. Not only is it immune to Ghost attacks, but its Thick Fat ability means it only takes half damage from Fire and Ice attacks. Offensively it has moves that are super effective against Ghost, Psychic, Dragon, Flying, Grass and Ground attacks. This means you want to make sure you don’t a Pokemon who has one of those six types facing Snorlax. Shadow Ball and Crunch lower Special Defense and Defense respectively, which is turning out to be a trend with Red’s Pokemon. Giga Impact is the Attack version of Hyper Beam. Your best bet here is a solid Fighting Pokemon or at least one with powerful Fighting Type attacks. Machamp is a great Pokemon to bit against Snorlax and I’m sure you can think of others as well.

Lapras is both the lowest level of Red’s Pokemon as well as the newest as it has replaced Umbreon from Gold and Silver. Shell Armour prevents critical hits so you’ll have to slowly whittle it down unless you are using Fighting, Rock, Grass or Electric attacks. This Lapras is also great at inflicting status effects. Body Slam can cause Paralyze and Blizzard can cause Freeze. You also have to deal with Brine which is insanely powerful once you knock Lapras below 50% health. As it knows Ice, Water, Psychic and Normal moves, you DON’T want to use Fighting, Rock or Grass type Pokemon as it has a move to counter each. Is your fast Electric type Pokemon that you used against Blastoise still healthy with lots of moves left? Then that’s the Pokemon you’re going to want to go with. An Electric Pokemon is your best overall bet here, so stick with it.

So there you go. We’ve covered all six of Red’s Pokemon and what moves they’ll be packing. Now it’s up to you to assemble your team and take him down.

Alex Lucard

Alexander Lucard is the Editor-in-Chief of Diehard GameFAN and Director of Operations for the InsidePulse network. He has worked in video game journalism since 2002 and is also a paid consultant for Konami and The Pokemon Company. Alex has previously written for Tips N Tricks, Gamespot, White Wolf, TSR, Wizards of the Coast, Eden Studios, 411mania, Not a True Ending and more. His writing can also be found in the monthly periodicals Massive Online Gamer and Pokemon Collector Magazine.

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when you do this rase your pokrmon to at least lv 90 so you have a chance of wining :)

stephanie Goode

thanks for this. It’s a really great review and I bet it will help me a lot. :)
I have a feeling that I might have some problems with blastroise and Lapras because I don’t have an electric yet (thinking of cetching riacu) and my starter is Megenium, which is good, but like you said both know Ice attacks :( Anyways, thanks again for the help.

PS- WHATEVER EVERYONE ELSE SAYS MEGENIUM RULES!!!!!!!! <3 <3

fesAEDF

i beat him and all my pokemon were lvl 50 except for lugia being lvl 70

Typhlosion>Meganium92

took me like 5 tries but eventually the critical hits and mewtwos charge beam pulled through. whew, here goes kyogre!

JOrdan

level 100 kyogre rules! one try only!

mahaprabhu

my question is if i beat red in pokemon soul siver i will get the hoenn region map if you respond no then tell me how

mahaprabhu

http://www.alexanderlucard.com Alex Lucard

You can only go to Johto and Kanto in SoulSilver and HeartGold.

Rstar

I cant beat him Probaly coz i havent got an eletric type pokemon -_-

http://www.alexanderlucard.com Alex Lucard

You don’t need any one particular type to beat Red. Just a good variety in your big six and strong movesets for each one.

gabe

I beat red on the 1st try with 4 lvl 60 pokemon……..but i did burn through 8 max revives and 10 full restores thougI beat red on the 1st try with 4 lvl 60 pokemon……..but i did burn through 8 max revives and 10 full restores though.

Kiser

i beat him pretty easy cuz i traded over my level 74 garchomp from pearl and used it lol

PLEASE HELP!!!!!
On the first time i got beaten by red
On the second try well i got beaten by LAPRAS
You guys have any tips to beat red??????

R0FLCOPTER :P

lol i used Ho-oh lvl 51, Snorlax lvl 58, Steelix lvl 51, and Mewtwo lvl 76. I used the Hail and Flareblits recoil against Charizard using my Snorlax. Then i used Mewtwo’s High Sp. Attack and Psychic combo to decimate Blastoise, Lapras, Pikachu, and Venusaur. I used Snorlax against Snorlax lol.

i beat red the first try with lvl 40 -50-ish pokemon but the fight took like 1 hour.
highest was dragonite lvl 56 and ampharon lvl 52

I used like 20 revives and 30 hyper potions.

Still gay red used like 5 full restores and 3 on venussaur :D

dave

Wow, im going to really need to rely on my ampharos for snorlax, lapras, blastoise and maybe even pichacu. I have a ho-oh, togekiss, golem (f me for pickachu), meganium and a starmie.

dragonboy

i’m gonna do my first try with 4 pokemon a level 70 feraligatr, level 74 lugia, level 71 Mewtwo (which i caught on the first try lol) and a level 73 Japanese articuno i got in a trade
wish me luck

Jack Orlando

I beat red with my Arceus and my Typlosion and my powerful Lugia and my Growdon.

cheapstratftw

this strategy costs you about 6 revives but works every time. go get yourself a gengar and make sure it knows destiny bond and curse. make sure it can at least survive 1 attack so that it can use destiny bond. once thats done assuming he doesnt switch out use curse to deplete your remaining health on gengar they will now both be dead. revive gengar and repeat also bring some ethers cuz you only get 5 destiny bonds in a match.
P.S. make sure you have a pokemon that can also survive at least one attack from his next pokemon so you can revive gengar. two attacks would be preferable as u can revive then heal gengar or just use max revive. hope this helps those out who are struggling.

I don’t know how you guys are getting your pokemon level to that extreme. You don’t even have vs seeker. And meganium is hopeless.What a state to be in.

DemonWolf

would a Raikou fall under a good electric to use against blasttoise and lapras? also would you count this as a good team to deal with red, Absol, Raikou, Typlosion, Skarmory, Snorlax and a shiny black charizard.

http://www.alexanderlucard.com Alex Lucard

Raikou is a great choice. He has legendary stats and learns a lot of powerful moves outside of Electric type attacks like Crunch.

Marcus – You have a realy good team. I’d evolve your Crobat into a Golbat though for extra speed and power. Really fast Pokemon and type matching make the difference against Red. Other than that, it depends on what your moveset is. I’d also level up your guys a lot too.